It’s … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

#215: Gordon Klingenschmitt

Gordon Klingenschmitt is a former navy chaplain (removed by the Pentagon, but refuses to admit to having being thrown out), occasional columnist for WorldNetDaily, and vehemently insane. He is fanatically anti-gay and a fan of imprecatory prayer. He applied it, for instance, against Mikey Weinstein, leader of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The tone is fascinatingly old Testament: “Let their days be few, and replace them with Godly people. Plunder their fields, and seize their assets. Cut off their descendants, and remember their sins, in Jesus' name. Amen” (his second attempt is discussed here). Charming fellow, in other words.

Klingenschmitt is in fact a champion of religious freedom, but only if it is understood his way – i.e. as observing God’s first commandment. I am not sure he is a liar for Jesus as much as an ignorant moron and willful misunderstander for Jesus. He is, unsurprisingly, also a DeMar style revisionist and theocrat.

Klingenschmitt may have been thrown out of the military (as was Jim Ammerman), but people like James Linzey remain. And that is indeed cause for concern.

Diagnosis: Batshit crazy raging fundamentalist and nutjob (and Liar for Jesus). Probably too insane to be any real danger, but one never knows.

Indeed, the insiduousness of the powers that be knows no limits. Obamacare, for instance, is a ploy to systematically exterminate the elderly, presumably through the death panels who make decisions regarding treatments based in part on balancing costs and perceived efficacy of the treatment – as opposed to today’s insurance companies, who [measure only the costs] in their altruism would never mix care for people with financial considerations.

(I am apparently unable to use the crossout effect in the comments section)

Here is Klingenschmitt valiantly standing by a report he knows to be false. All in the name of partisanship, of course. And here he claims that demons are to blame for the reported incident that never happened.

It’s not only gay marriage, though. As a true wingnut’s wingnut, Klingenschmitt also thinks that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act promotes bestiality and that there is a demonic spirit inside Senator Jeff Merkley. Such are the underlying fabric of politics and the causal mechanisms in political decisions according to Klingenschmitt’s mind.

But returning to politics in general, Gordo has expressed concern over Obama’s present efforts to create an atheist army to attack Christians (only he – and perhaps Bryan Fischer – has noticed, apparently). Obama is not only an atheist, however – he is also a Muslim. But the main reason he is constantly and deliberatelyhelping the al-qaeda is that he hates America. Just look at Obamacare. It causes cancer, Gordo asserts. Apparently it does so because it is so hideously ungodly, and everyone knows that apostasy is one of the main causes of cancer.

Here is Gordo coming up with a clever legal plan, which indeed is so clever that it would have qualified Gordo for an entry in our Encyclopedia on its own. And no, he doesn’t have the faintest clue how the legal system works. Nor the Internet.

Klingenschmitt has recently turned his attention to gays and LGBT rights ... oh. Like so many fellow wingnuts, Klingenschmitt is not reluctant to promote various fake stories and myths; here, for instance, he promotes claims made by the Pacific Justice Institute about a transgender student in a Colorado high school who had supposedly been harassing other girls in the locker room and restrooms. According to Gordo, the student - under the influence of a "demonic spirit" - was "raping, at least visually, these teenage girls." Similarly, he fervently promoted the fake story about "Obama's unisex uniforms" for the army - US soldiers would be forced to wear girl hats and skirts, according to Gordo - and long after the story had been thoroughly debunked. At least he also explained why Obama had ordered this: demons.

Indeed, demonic spirits seem to be his new schtick. "There is a demon of rape inside of [the LGBT] movement," says Gordo, "to violate your daughters." And not only the LGBT movement. Demonic spirits are everywhere. For instance, relying on his knowledge of medicine and chemistry, as well as thorough investigation, he has conlcuded that drug-induced hallucinations are demonic spirits.

He is also (still) absolutely convinced that gay people are all pedophiles, and that they just want to get married so they can have access to children (he also argued that homosexuality is wrong because the species would die out if everyone were gay, which by the same token would make being a man immoral as well, one assumes). Therefore, when gay couples raise children it is child abuse by default, and child molestation is, as Gordo sees things, the favorite recruitment tool of adult gays.

It is not only the gays. It is also their allies, the liberals. Thus, he argued that a non-discrimination bill backed by Sen. Al Franken and Rep. Jared Polis should be called the "No Child Left Unmolested’ amendment," warning that the lawmakers are "recruiting your kids" and "bullying public school kids aggressively." He also, tastefully, accused Franken (who is Jewish) of being a Nazi. Expanding upon his accusation, he claimed that Franken is really trying to require pedophilia in all public schools.

I dare you to find anyone significantly more unhinged and delusional than Gordon Klingenschmitt.

Of course, his insanity extends well beyond his bigoted focus on sexuality. His feeble war on rightwingwatch's youtube account is a case in point. He also responded to the Hobby Lobby case at the Supreme Court by warning that President Obama is forcing Christians to kill children as part of "a spiritual war to save or destroy unborn babies and the elderly."

But it is mostly about gays. For instance, Gordo evidently believes that only those who go to Heaven should get benefits in the US.; hence, the government should not prevent discrimination against gay people because gay people aren’t going to heaven and “If they’re not going to get eternal benefits in Heaven, why should we give them government rewards here on this earth? I don’t think we should.” Which is one of the most extreme theocratic suggestion we have encountered in a while - nonetheless, Klingenschmitt, who is currently running for the state legislature in Colorado (partly because he is opposed to the legalization of pot, which Gordo - as we mentioned earlier - thinks is (literally) demonic, tries to portray himself as the anti-theocracy candidate in the race. His reasoning is a bit unclear, but it may have something to do with not imposing religious rule on people being imposing religious rule on them nonetheless.

He has also presented a new argument for not letting gay people serve in the military: because they’re always “taking breaks on the combat field to change diapers all because their treacherous sin causes them to lose control of their bowels.”

But this; this may be the most extreme one yet (just think for a moment about what he is actually saying).